Saturday, September 29, 2007

Beer is for Closers

I'm giving up drinking until I make a commission by placing one of these asshole VP's with a job in advertising at my job. The people at my work say all the time that "pain is the greatest motivator known to mankind," and let me tell you, being in Chicago the night the Cubs clinch a playoff spot and NOT being able to drink is damn painful, and, with any luck, one heck of a motivator. My willpower once I start drinking is horrible, in that as long as people are willing and able, I'll keep sucking them back. However, my willpower has always been strong once I'm fully committed to something. Here are some fine examples which illustrate this very point.

1. Earlier this year, my doctor told me that that my "good cholesterol" was good, but my "bad cholesterol" was a touch bad. Nothing to worry about, but just a little high. I freaked. "What do I do, doc!" I replied in a frantic state. "Well," he said calmly, and a little annoyed with my frantic state "just cut back on fried foods a little." I haven't had a fried food since. Not a french fry, not a tater-tot, and nary an Arby's curly fry dipped in Horsey sauce.

2. Going back a little further. My mom told me that I had a bit of a thumb sucking problem as a kid, which came as no surprise for me to hear, as I'm a bit of an oral fixator. It was a habit she could not break me of until my dentist told me that if I continued suckling on my fattest of digits my teeth would stick out like "Bugs Bunny." My thumb-sucking days were over that very afternoon.

3. Going back even further, I was 16 in that last story, when my mom was trying to potty train me, I was not hearing it. When she'd ask if I was going to go in the potty that day, I'd say, "Not today." I've always been a bit of a procrastinator, and a brilliant one, in that I wasn't being defiant, just putting it off a little, just trying to buy myself a few more glorious days of shitting in my pants. One day when the whole family was getting ready to go to the public pool, my favorite place in the world to shit my pants, and my mom, in a stroke of genius, said, "You can't go, little Gancer, unless you go in the potty first." And I've been going in the potty ever since, unless the situation calls for other more creative endeavors, like writing my name in the snow or pooping off a high dive at that very, same public pool. Ironic? No, but a good poop story.

So, as you can see from these stories dating back to when I was potty trained, at age seven, once I set my mind to something I'm damned determined. I kind of wish I wasn't though, because going to bars when you're sober, with millions of drunken Cub fans, is damn irritating. Here are some things I discovered:

1. Bars are smoky. It's like I'm immune to it when I'm schnockered, but when I'm sober I'm so annoyed and disgusted. Believe me when I say I don't like being the guy annoyed with smoke. Even though I only smoke a pack a year, nine times out of ten I prefer smokers to non-smokers, but that's another post for another day.

2. People are obnoxious when they drink. The only worth-while drunken display I saw was a girl, who couldn't dance for shit, trip over her big boots, and fall on her face. A good laugh was had by all. She was crying, but I'm sure she wasn't hurt. The makeup undoubtedly broke the fall. See, that wouldn't be as funny to me if I were drunk, and I probably would have thought she was a damn, fine dancer, but sober Gancer was too observant for his own good and way too crabby.

3. It's hard to pick up girls when you're sober. I don't want to be the stone sober guy picking up on drunk girls, because that's kind of sleazy, so I just kind of stand around thinking of a good time to sneak out.

4. I notice how much my friends and I drink when I'm sober. I feel like their mom when I'm like, "jeez, another round already?" I know full well that if I were drinking too I'd be right along with them, and some nights, maybe worse, and that's the scary part.

5. The crazy thing is that for the first hour or so of barroom sobriety, it's all I can do not to jump over the bar and slam the first three bottles of anything I can grab at random, but then I reach a point where I want no part of what the demon rum makes people become. That rhymed! However, I had better have some success at work soon, because I know these Cubbies are going cause me a great deal of stress, and then when they blow it again, making it officially 100 years since they've won a World Series, I'll need to get properly Schlitzed, and you're all coming out with me, seven readers, to watch my glorious, drunken, tumble off the wagon.

Your turn: Isn't it some sucky-ass shit to be the lone sober person when you go out with your booze-hound friends? Discuss . . .

29 comments:

To answer your question: YES. It IS some ‘sucky-ass shit’ to be the only sober slob when you go out with the lushes you call friends. That’s why I always drink. 24/7. Just to make sure I’m always one step ahead of 'em.

Personally, I never leave the house without a mini flask of gin. It stops me from exploding at school mums' and their dumbass children in the carpark each day and gives me that little boost I need to get through trawling the supermarket ailses looking for beef stock.

I haven't been single in a bar since 1993. If I go to a bar - I am shitfaced on the outset or well on my way because I need alcohol to be a friendly, relaxed person. And not to worry so much about who is or is not noticing me. Otherwise I'm like a soviet spy hovering around watching them watching me and when I dance I feel as if I'm tina turner in the private dancer filmclip.

So it all works better to be shitfaced on beer and skittles.Next time, make sure you do the same!!

Oh, good, I have time to comment before I go out drinking! I hate being the only sober one out, too-- I realize just how annoying and ugly I must be when drunk, and I hate facing harsh truths about myself.

Does this drinking ban mean that you and the Cherry Ride don't want to have a beer with my dad and me in the Waldron Deck lot at Soldier Field before Bears / Vikings in two weeks?

When it's me turn to be the designated driver and Me be watching everybody gettin buzzed, bombed, blasted and blottoed. The only thoughts that goes through me brain be: Do the Monster look like a retarded marionette with turetts when on the sauce? (yes) And how can Me fuck with these inebriated morons and make certain they wake up in the morning with greusome bedmates.

i hate being the sober one. it actually pisses me off to no end. well, not really. a small handfull of my close friends piss me off when i'm sober and they're drunk. ok, not when they're "drunk" but more when they're "shit faced beyond all fucking belief and only half a step away from defecating in their pants drunk" because then they are super annoying, and i can't get drunk enough, fast enough, to make them tolerable. i just can't.

I was a bouncer for a while. That is a job that makes you really hate drunks and somke. And hip hop. And Country. Pretty much all non-acoustic music. And whorish women with tattoos. And gangsta or frattish men.

Really, the only redeeming quality is the staff round(s) and being able to fuck people up legally as a civilian.

Since I am essentially drunk after a single beer -- a delightful and highly economical fluke of body chemistry -- I actually can't remember ever being more sober than all of my friends. Sounds ghastly.